When General Motors and Chrysler were
floundering and in desperate
need of a lifeline from the American government, Ford was moving
forward as a still independent company. Ford Motor Company has made
some good decisions over the past few years including offloading its
premium brands like Volvo, Land Rover, and Aston Martin.

Ford Motor Company is continuing to
trim the fat and transform itself into a lean, mean fighting machine
by offloading
its long underperforming Mercury division. The Mercury division
has long gotten the leftover table scraps from the mainstream Ford
brand. The Milan, Mariner, Mountaineer, and Grand Marquis are all
thinly veiled rebadges of the Ford Fusion, Escape, Explorer, and
Crown Victoria respectively.

“Mercury originally was created as a premium offering to Ford
and was an important source of incremental sales,” said Ford in a
press release. “However, the continued strength of the Ford
brand – particularly during the past three years – has
accelerated the migration from Mercury to Ford for many customers.”

Mercury vehicle sales totaled just
92,299
for all of 2009 compared to 1,445,742 for the Ford brand. Even
Lincoln, which caters to a more affluent audience than either Ford or
Mercury, managed to move nearly as many vehicles as Mercury with
82,847 vehicles sold.

Ford Motor Company will wind down
Mercury production in the coming months and expects to cease all
production in the fourth quarter of 2010.

With the laggard Mercury brand now out
of the way, Ford Motor Company will now “fully devote its
financial, product development, production and marketing, sales and
service” to the Ford and Lincoln brands.

For the Lincoln brand, that means the
addition of seven all-new or significantly revised models over the
next four years. These new vehicles will include a surprising entry
from Lincoln, a C-segment vehicle (think Honda Civic, Toyota
Corolla).

Lincoln will also likely benefit from
hybrid powertrains that Mercury shared with Ford – Mercury
currently sells the Milan Hybrid sedan and Mariner Hybrid “cute-ute”.
Hybrid powertrains would make a perfect fit for the Fusion-based
Lincoln MKZ and the Taurus-based MKS.

Ford Motor Company is also looking to
further distance Lincoln from Ford with an exclusive V6 for the
brand, more efficient transmissions, adaptive computer-controlled
suspensions, and active noise control.

"We have made tremendous progress
on profitably growing the Ford brand during the past few years. Now,
it is time to do the same for Lincoln," said Mark
Fields, Ford's president of The Americas. "The
new Lincoln vehicles will transform luxury for North
American premium customers through an unexpected blend of responsive
driving enjoyment and warm, inviting comfort. We will also offer our
customers a world-class retail experience through a vibrant retail
network."

I am glad that Ford FINALLY put this to rest. Mercury's been irrelevant for at least 20 years. I'm also happy to hear that Lincoln is now going to get some much needed attention too. Good job Ford!! BTW, anyone in line for a 2011 Mustang?

Honestly, I'm looking at an MKZ or an MKS myself. They are fanstic looking cars and have a good feel, but are a tad expensive. The new Buick LaCrosse looks fantastic, about the same features as the MKS and same general size (I'm not a car guy) but at a lower price, still very nice. With that said, if Lincoln brings out a "Midnight Edition" or something similar to what they had a few yrs ago, i will be sold.

1.) Ford moved "upmarket" with Premium/Titanium packages2.) Lincoln moved "downmarket" by selling too many Ford rebadges with only minor sheetmetal and interior design changes.

If Lincoln moved "upmarket" again by offering significantly different exterior and interior products, then there might again be a place for a Ford re-badge with higher quality materials. (Seriously, the Fusion is a good value, but some of the materials used are well... not best and the Lincoln MKZ ~34k intro price feels like way to much to pay for a FWD tarted up Fusion. Ideally, Lincoln would have an independant MKZ car and Mercury would sell the tarted up Fusion, more like 28k intro price with maybe a Ecoboost 4)

Well Mercury has primarily been a Ford vehicle with upgraded trim for quite a while now. If they want to do that, they can follow the pattern they do in many of their truck lines by adding another letter to a model number (ok we have the XT, the XLT, how about the XLM?). It seems pretty inefficient to have a completely different brand name for the "fancy car seats" option.

I'm not saying that Mercury is bad, but this decision seems to make sense to me.

It has seemed like Mercury was lost somewhere vague between Ford and Lincoln for a long time. It probably leeched sales from both divisions.

Fords are very well built and quite nice themselves; there is no need for Mercury anymore. It is like the Oldsmobile of Ford.

What I would like to see them do is further distance Lincoln from Ford, and get them up to where Cadillac sits on the GM ladder. Make the whole Lincoln lineup more powerful, featureful, sexy, and interesting (and yeah expensive).

It was, I mean like often times when a customer would come into our dealership and want to know about a Mariner we'd describe the manfuacture process as this:

"The Escape, and Mariner start at the same assembly line, go down the line and get the smart parts, the same assembly, at the end of the line the mariners get mercury badging and the escape gets ford badging"

And generally speaking Mercury was harder to find a vehicle in stock, and generally more expensive (for the same thing)

I think in the 2 years I have been selling Ford products I have sold 1 or 2 Mercury products.

Mercury just leeches and confuses customers. It has no real "market segment" ford is no longer a low end manufacture spitting out cheap broken excuses of cars.

Meh, never cared for the Mercury brand. Seemed geared toward the older market. If Ford felt it was time to put it to rest, then so be it, they would know better than anyone. If the brand can't make you money then why have it.

I had a 99 Grand Marquis... I inherited it from my grandparents when they died. But for a kid straight out of high school it was kind of awesome. That thing was a beast that could fit 5 of my friends with room to spare. It was super comfy, more like driving a giant couch than a car, and a few of my friends actually preferred the back seat! Yeah sure it was gutless and handled like a plate of jello but I can understand why old people liked them.

But I do agree that this seems like a smart move for Ford. It had become an increasingly nonexistent brand.However Ford has been getting consistently stronger and I hope this helps them continue to refine their vehicles for years to come.

For you it was gutless - remember that your 99 Grand Marquis had more power and torque than the entry line Mustangs of 1960's (six cylinders, 101 HP). Your Grand Marquis probably had more power, more torque and more power per weight than those Mustangs

Hello Calin, while your right that the entry Mustangs of the 1960s had some low power numbers, specifically in the very first ones having a 2.8L V6 that well... was gutless. The first full model year, the Enines were a 120 hp 3.3L V6 as well as a 200hp (V8), 225 hp (V8), and a 271hp (V8) models. Curb wieghts were around 2,500 lbs for the V6 and 3,000 lbs for the V8.

In contrast the 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis has a curb wieght of 3917 lbs with a 200 hp engine.

So yes, the 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis might be able to accelerate in a straight line slightly faster than the absolute base model mustang from 1965. However, most mustangs from the 1960s would have been significant faster. (Even the base V8 would have smoked the Grand Marquis, and by 67, 335 hp models were availible. In 1969, over 80% of the mustangs were V8 models... unable to find estimates for the other years)

Oh yeah I mean you could still tell that there was something resembling a V8 under the hood, but it wasn't anything to write home about. I must admit though, I had a blast in that car, lots of good memories with it.

But it's probably a safe bet that the majority of daily tech readers are relatively "young" people. So of course we don't care about losing the mercury brand. But I bet there will be more than a few old timers all fired up and upset that Mercury is no more. And I can't blame them, if I were 80 years old with a bad back, didn't care about getting anywhere fast, and couldn't afford a pimped out Lincoln I'd probably be pissed too! lol